


Yours Truly, Angry Mob

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: was and is and will be dear [1]
Category: North and South - Ambiguous Fandom, North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: “If you can’t find a friend to look after you, I will have to insist that you spend the night in hospital for observation,” Dr Donaldson says, levelling her with a hard stare that brooks no argument.“I’ll look after her,” John says abruptly. They all turn to look at him with varying levels of incredulity. “If you like,” he tacks on awkwardly. “I think I might be - responsible. A bit. So, if you really don’t want to go to hospital-”“I don’t,” Margaret says. “I really don’t."





	Yours Truly, Angry Mob

“Margaret? Margaret, are you awake?”

Margaret groans in a way that she hopes conveys “barely, and I intensely wish I wasn’t.” By the relieved mutterings that follow, she gathers it didn’t. She cracks open one eye, the one furthest from the source of her dreadful headache, and blinds herself, abruptly slamming her eye shut again and groaning once more.

Someone’s thumb rubs the back of her hand and this alerts her to the fact that the hand attached to said thumb is holding her own very tenderly, with such care and attention that she might have been made of porcelain. This is of interest enough to encourage her to try opening her eye again and she does, blinking rapidly against the brightness of the day. Her vision swims unsettlingly, making Margaret suddenly, viscerally aware that she is very nauseous, before finally focussing upon a whole ring of concerned onlookers, ranged about her like a halo. Two peel off as she opens her eyes, muttering something about a doctor.

She blinks and opens her mouth to ask what happened, where she is, and who these people are. “Whuh?”

A stern woman with dark, pinned-back hair and the most austere black pantsuit Margaret has ever seen sniffs officiously. “She’s fine.”

The handsome man on her other side rolls his eyes as a bold, loud voice doing its level best to be plaintive strikes up somewhere behind and to the left of Margaret. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my life, honestly. I thought we were all going to die! I’m not surprised Margaret fainted, I still feel _super_ lightheaded now!”

Margaret smiles slightly at the woman’s complaining, somehow sure that there was never really any danger. The handsome man smiles back at her with the same teasing note as he says “Margaret didn’t faint, Fanny, someone hit her head.” As he says that, however, his face shifts from relieved amusement to deep concern, furrowed brows and intense blue eyes, scanning her face for further injury.

“Go and sit, if you feel so lightheaded,” the austere woman says, without looking around, and Margaret can easily imagine this Fanny’s present childish sulk. Very Pirates of the Caribbean - she hopes this doesn’t make her Davy Jones. Margaret is just beginning to imagine pantsuit-lady with tentacles when her brain catches up with her.

“I hit my head?” she queries.

“No,” handsome man says at the same time as the woman says “Yes.” They have a brief, silent battle of wills before she rolls her eyes and sighs. “Someone else hit your head,” he explains, thumb stroking over her hand again.

“Huh,” Margaret says thoughtfully. That explains the amnesia, her current position on the floor, and her delirious thoughts about sea monsters. Oh, and the pain, of which there is really quite a lot.

She raises one hand to her right temple and winces at the contact. There is blood on her fingers when she pulls them back to stare in bleary, blinking incomprehension at them. “Ow,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.

“Don’t-” the man says, catching her wrist and returning it to her side. “Don’t touch it. A doctor’s coming, don’t worry.”

Some time passes after that in silence, though Margaret would be hard-pressed to say how much. The doctor appears and she is helped to sit up, giving her a better view of the unfamiliar foyer she finds herself in. It’s all clean white and glass, very modern and clinical without a hint of history or human interest, and Margaret dislikes it. She doesn’t say as much, though, because she vaguely remembers that it’s somehow connected to the attentive young man whom she is currently using as a back rest while she fights the nausea involved in just sitting up to be examined.

It’s also entirely possible that she’s already said as much, and that it hadn’t gone well last time.

The doctor leans back on his heels and hums thoughtfully. “Well?” pantsuit and gentleman demand together.

“It’s a concussion, certainly,” he says calmly. “Not too bad, though. You were right to call; when Miss Hale was hit as she was, it could have been much more serious. But she should recover soon, Mrs Thornton.”

 _Thornton._ The word alone brings all her memories crashing back and she hopes her wince can be explained away by her injury. She remembers coming to Marlborough Department Stores as a part of her research for her next article, determined to find something to hate. John Thornton had shown her around, clearly proud of his store and far more clearly extremely busy, snatching time he couldn’t really spare to show some nosy journalist that he was not, in fact, a Dickensian devil incarnate. She remembers a commotion at the front of the store and him charging toward it, calling back for her to stay away lest she be hurt, and her following hot on his heels regardless. She remembers the rioting in the street about the pay cuts everyone in the area had received in time for the next tax hike and how it had looked to get ugly and how she had -

Stood in front of Mr Thornton, notepaper and pen in front of her like sword and shield, loudly declaring to the assembled mob and astonished owner that she was a _journalist_ , thank you very much, and had press immunity and neutrality, and they should all go home before this got any worse.

Then, presumably, it got worse, because next thing she knew she was flat on her back in the foyer of the store.

The riot appears to have dispersed, though. _Score: Margaret one, rioters also one._

She tries to sit up more and shift away from John, embarrassed to be half-lying on him now that she can remember who he is. His hand follows her, though, settling on the small of her back, and she’d be cross if she didn’t need it. “So, I’m fine?”

Doctor Donaldson frowns and tilts his head assessingly. “Ye-es,” he says at last. “You’ll need someone to watch you for the next twenty-four hours or so.”

Margaret wilts slightly. “Really?” she says, hearing the whinging note in her voice and trying to stop herself. “My parents are in London and Bessie’s sick. I’m sure I can look after myself.”

“If you can’t find a friend to look after you, I will have to insist that you spend the night in hospital for observation,” Dr Donaldson says, levelling her with a hard stare that brooks no argument.

“I’ll look after her,” John says abruptly. They all turn to look at him with varying levels of incredulity. “If you like,” he tacks on awkwardly. “I think I might be - responsible. A bit. So, if you really don’t want to go to hospital-”

“I don’t,” Margaret says. “I really don’t. But I want to go home.”

John nods, looking at her seriously, but with a slight edge of what she might, on someone else, call nerves. “Whatever you like.”

Dr Donaldson helps her to her feet and busies himself with writing some advice on a scrap of paper while Margaret collects her papers and bag. The pounding of her head is unfortunately not enough to drown out the conversation between John and his mother.

“Is this wise?” Mrs Thornton mutters, shooting a glowering glance Margaret’s way.

“I have to,” he murmurs back.

 _Great,_ Margaret thinks, turning away. _I’m a burden._

“Ready to go?” John says, showing her his car keys in one hand, the other holding a black hold-all that appears to have materialised from nowhere.

Margaret clutches her papers to her chest like a shield and forces a smile. “Yup.”

* * *

John drives safely and carefully through the traffic, exactly as she expected. Margaret is almost disappointed: John Thornton, exploitative store owner and secret speed fiend would have made an excellent headline.

“You’re going the long way, you know,” she says as they turn left rather than continue straight down the long main road that goes far nearer her little flat than their current route will take them.

He glances at her with a small smile. “I thought you didn’t drive.”

She rolls her eyes. “Exactly. I walk the shortest route possible.”

“Past all the shops and stores, through the busiest part of the rioting?” he says dryly and she folds her arms, huffing and sinking lower in her seat to stare sulkily out of the window. “There, now even you must admit I have _some_ good ideas.”

“I’m injured. I don’t _have_ to do anything.” Not her best comeback, but she _is_ injured; her brain feels like it’s crawling through mud.

John shoots her a worried glance, which she refuses to acknowledge.

“So,” she says, nudging the bag in the footwell with a toe. “What’s in the bag?”

“Some clothes, toiletries, a book,” John says with a shrug, like it’s super normal to have what appears to be a panic bag of emergency supplies within easy reach at all times.

“In case - what? You have to go on the run?”

He laughs, a pleasant sound that abruptly lightens his whole face and makes him look years younger. “Even you cannot think my crimes so bad as that, Margaret. I sometimes forget to go home. My mother makes me keep a change of clothes in the office in case I don’t make it back to my flat.”

Margaret has an abrupt vision of John, tie loose, top buttons undone and sleeves rolled up, snoring at his desk with his head pillowed on his arms. The thought is oddly endearing; a curious reminder that he is a person too, as much as his employees are, and his livelihood is as dependent on the success of the store as theirs. She almost feels sorry for some of the things she’s said to him about working them too hard and not caring about their fates.

Almost.

He parks neatly in the space that is her own but never used and she leads him into her building and up the stairs. She hates his shop building, all new and soulless, but is suddenly ashamed of her home: a cheap, run-down, concrete seventies monstrosity that’s even worse than his Starbucks-style store. He doesn’t say anything, though, as they pass the lift that never works and climb the three flights of stairs to her flat.

She drops her keys on the sideboard and kicks off her shoes, hanging her jacket on a hook. Margaret hears John copy her but she’s already in the kitchen, making tea and finding biscuits and generally showing that she doesn’t need supervision, thank you very much. John seems content to allow her this, leaning against the doorway into the kitchen and gazing about him. He seems to be mentally taking in every detail of her shoddy little flat, and Margaret chooses to uncharitably believe that he’s pricing up her every possession, comparing them to equivalents of his own. She knows that the best thing one can say about her flat is that it’s clean, knows that the wallpaper is dreadful, knows that all her stuff is at least a year old and left over from either London or Helstone, but she can’t stand that he knows it.

He thanks her for the tea, declines the biscuit and waits for her to make the next move. “I need to work on my article,” she says, pushing past him into the living room where her desk is.

“Ah,” he says, following her. “The plight of the violent rioters who’ve so kindly given you a concussion.”

Margaret turns in her chair to glare at him while her laptop starts up. “It’s symptomatic of a greater societal issue created by profit-driven bosses.”

“Sorry, I’d forgotten this was all my fault.” He rolls his eyes, sipping his tea.

“Oh, you go on doing just what you _have to_ ,” she snaps, turning back to her computer and therefore missing his confused look at her very deliberate emphasis.

* * *

Margaret is forced to give up on work before long because the screen is making her headache worse and the words have stopped making sense. She stretches in her chair and turns.

John is sprawled on one end of the sofa rather inelegantly, one long leg stretched out far in front of him, with a pen in his mouth and a frown directed at the paperwork in front of him. His socks have flowers on and are almost entirely worn through across the heel and ball. The sight is rather sweet - a thought she dismisses quickly.

“Nice socks,” she says instead, hoping he sees that she’s teasing, not mocking. They’re not yet very good at discerning whether the other is laughing at or with them, and an argument is not what her headache is crying out for.

He looks up in surprise, dropping the pen on his chest, and then lifts one foot until he can see it over his papers. “Ah, yes.” He grins. “A month or so ago Fanny discovered it was fashionable to be vegan and bought us all vegan socks.”

Margaret frowns. “Aren’t all socks vegan?” He keeps grinning, and she shakes her head with a small smile. “They’ve not aged well.”

He frowns at his toes. “Certainly not for their price tag. Sorry.”

She raises an eyebrow. “For sullying my flat with worn socks? I’ll get over it.” He laughs at her dry tone and she squints at the clock. “I’ll start dinner, if you like.”

John looks at his watch in surprise, like he’d forgotten that the passage of time still existed in her flat as well as the outside world, and she wonders for a moment how often, exactly, he forgets to eat or go home or sleep. “Oh, I can do that. I don’t think I’ve been much help to you today.”

“Because I don’t need help, and am fine,” Margaret says firmly. “I’ll make dinner.”

* * *

“This is delicious,” John says between mouthfuls of spaghetti.

“See?” she says. “I’m fine.”

“I will have to change the dressing after dinner, though,” he says and she sighs.

“I suppose.” Margaret finishes her meal and pushes the plate away from her slightly.

He watches her with amusement and she colours. “You really hate being an invalid.”

“I’m not an invalid,” she says automatically. “But yes. And hospitals.”

“Why?” he asks, cleaning every morsel of food from his plate and eating it.

She shrugs. “Just - don’t. Guess you really did like dinner, then,” she says, nodding at his entirely empty plate.

John ducks his head with a small smile. “It was - nice. The food, and-”

Margaret is suddenly overcome with a bad feeling about where this conversation is going.

“Margaret, would you like to have dinner with me?” he says, hands folded on the table before him and eyes very sincere as they met her own. “Perhaps next week. I enjoy our time together-”

“Really?” Margaret says, unable to stop herself. “Because the way I remember it, we argue. All the time. About everything.” John blinks. “We haven’t agreed once - I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend time with someone.”

“But - it’s always interesting, isn’t it?” he says, fumbling with his fingers.

Margaret throws her hands up. “Interesting? To argue about whether or not your workers should be worked to death or not? Whether they deserve money when they’re too sick to work for it?”

“That’s not fair,” John says sternly, pointing a finger at her officiously.

Her ire raises. “No, of course. Why should they not get where you are? After all, you had nothing but a decent education, a supportive family, an internship many would kill for and the inherent privileges of being a straight white man!”

“My apologies,” John says, spreading his hands before him and glowering furiously. “I forget how well you know the struggles of the workers, being yourself a straight white journalist from a good family, having never had to work like them a day in your life.”

“You clearly don’t know me very well at all. Why would you think I would go out for dinner with you? Just asking has reduced us to this!” She gestures between them where their angry words hang heavy in the air.

“I had thought,” John says with some difficulty, “that you might like to try getting along for a change. What you did for me today-”

“Was to prevent unnecessary violence!” Margaret yells. “I would have done it for anyone. I thought that they wouldn’t attack a neutral journalist and that I could stop the rioting before it got worse!”

John rolls his eyes. “This is Milton, Margaret, not Afghanistan. The press don’t have diplomatic immunity here.”

Margaret folds her arms. “I suppose you asked me out because of your obligation, then, since you clearly care so little for my work. You think you owe me.”

“Obli- no!” John looks genuinely astonished, as well as fairly furious at her reasoning. “I wasn’t obligated to ask. I asked because I - I like you.”

Margaret blinks at his sudden quiet sincerity. “Then I am sorry,” she says, wrongfooted by the tonal shift abrupt enough to give her whiplash. “Because I do not - like you.”

John’s face becomes stormy and cross again. “I see,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I mean - I do not like you like that,” Margaret says somewhat frantically, trying to salvage what she can from this conversational hell.

“Thank you, Margaret, I think I’ve got the message,” John says tightly, standing abruptly and crossing the small room to grab his coat with slightly shaking fingers. She shrinks slightly in her chair, away from his ice cold hurt. He cannot help but loom over her anyway, so much taller as he is. “I need some air,” he says sharply, and Margaret stares in silence at the empty plates before her, listening to him leave and trying not to think about the tears she had seen gathering in his proud, injured eyes.

* * *

She’s not sure if he’ll come back so she goes through Dr Donaldson’s checklist on her own. She drinks some water and has some painkillers, calls her parents and listens to them fret, reassures them and talks them down from cutting their stay with Aunt Shaw short and coming home.

“Someone said he’d stay with me,” Margaret says, and isn’t even lying.

 _Get plenty of rest,_ the note says. _Avoid stressful situations._ She claps a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing, or crying, or both.

Then she fills the sink with hot, soapy water and cleans up the debris of a meal for two and entirely fails not to think about it.

Why? Why would he do that? He claims to like her, yet has shown little to no signs of it. All they ever do is argue, and they agree on almost nothing. Margaret cannot see any version of a meal next week which doesn’t end exactly as this one has, but with less washing up and more being banned from ever coming back to the nice restaurant. They’re hardly even friends - are they?

No. They argue all the time.

But he does always listen to what you have to say, a niggling voice points out. And you were wrong about most of the arguments you first had. And you’re always trying not to like him; if you really hated him, you wouldn’t have to try.

 _Oh, damn,_ Margaret thinks. _Maybe we are friends._

_Well. We were._

Margaret sniffs sternly and resumes scrubbing the saucepan with heightened vigour, ignoring the tears that make ripples in the water.

* * *

She’s too busy wincing and concentrating to hear anyone come in. As consequence, she smacks her elbow on the bathroom cabinet when she sees John in the mirror, hissing in pain and surprise as she turns.

“I borrowed your key,” he says by way of explanation. Then he reaches up, slowly, request for permission implicit in his movements, and she takes her hand away from the plaster on her forehead and lets him gently, carefully peel it away. Margaret stays as still as she can as he swabs a wipe over the cut, biting her lip rather than flinch away. John is ridiculously careful in his movements, concentrating so hard he might have been defusing a bomb, not applying a dressing. His brows are furrowed deeply, beautiful blue-green eyes focussed with their usual intensity upon her - upon her wellbeing - and his hands are exceedingly gentle.

 _I don’t deserve this,_ she thinks. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

John sighs. “Me too.”

“Why did you come back?” Margaret asks, voice almost impossibly small and barely echoing on the gloomy tiles.

“I made a promise,” he says softly. “And - I do still like you. I won’t ask again, don’t worry. But. I can’t just _stop_ liking you.” He offers her a smile that is frankly tragic. “I’ve tried.”

* * *

They end up on the sofa watching old _Top Gear_ reruns, more because it’s a Thursday at half-eight in the evening and the selection offered is fairly uninspiring than any actual desire to watch it. Margaret feels no remorse in talking over it, therefore.

“It wasn’t a good time.” She keeps staring at the screen as she talks.

“Please, Margaret, I don’t really want a play-by-play on what went wrong,” John says, sounding truly bone-tired.

“I’m concussed, for one,” she says regardless, and he sighs, resigned to his fate. “Two, it was very out of the blue. I wasn’t even sure we were friends.” There is a sharp intake of breath to her right. “I’ve decided we are.”

“Oh, good,” John says, mild amusement slightly breaking through his languid sadness.

“Three.” There is a long pause as a car advert plays out, banal and cheery, and Margaret can’t bear to say something quite so momentous with it as backing. “My mother is dying,” she says eventually, when it becomes apparent that life is going to continue to be noisy and senseless and tone-deaf whether Mrs Hale is in it or not.

“Oh. Oh my God,” John says, soft and gentle.

“Cancer. It’s a waiting game now.” She continues to stare, unseeing, at the TV.

“Margaret, I’m so sorry.” He is, too, she can hear in his voice that he’s not just saying it. John likes her and her father, and therefore her mother by extension.

Margaret shrugs one shoulder. “Not your fault, and you weren’t to know. But. That’s why I hate hospitals just now.”

“If you want anything,” John says, one large hand on her shoulder, “anything at all.”

She nods jerkily and rubs her eye, and the subject is dropped.

* * *

“I’m not throwing you out of your own bed,” John says, arms folded and tone brooking no disagreement. “Especially since I’m supposed to be looking after you.”

“You’ll never fit on the sofa,” Margaret counters.

They both look at the couch assessingly, and conclude that there is no way that John’s six-foot-four frame is going to fold itself onto it.

“You could always go home for the night?” Margaret tries hopefully. “I’m fine now, really.”

John gives her a look and she sighs. “I said I would look after you, and I will.”

Margaret takes a deep breath. “We could share the bed.” John looks up at her, astonished. “It’s big enough, and I’ll be mature if you will.”

“Are you sure you’d be - comfortable?” John says awkwardly, fidgeting with his shirtsleeve. “With me, I mean.”

Margaret looks him square in the eye. “I may not have always liked you, John Thornton, but I have never once distrusted you.”

There is a pause, and then John offers her the sweetest, most grateful half-smile she has ever seen. “Thank you, Margaret Hale.”

She nods decisively. “I will go and change.”

* * *

Despite what they’ve both said about being mature, Margaret cannot sleep.

The bedroom routine had been remarkably easy: she had changed in the bathroom and brushed her teeth, and then they had swapped. He had her sit on the edge of the bed while he checked her pupils and consulted Dr Donaldson’s note when she reported her continued headache. John prescribed her aspirin and rest with an officiousness designed to make her smile, a teasing twinkle in his eye, and she could almost imagine the hellish courtship-cum-shouting match of a few hours ago hadn’t happened at all. They’d got into bed without any event, regardless of what all the rom-coms and such promised of two friends sharing a bed. The sight of him, close up and smelling of mint, awakened no dormant feelings toward him in her and he didn’t seem overcome with passion either - to her great relief.

But she still can’t sleep.

She huffs and rolls onto her side, looking at John’s profile silhouetted by the silvery lamplight that sneaks through her blinds. His eyes are open and staring at her ceiling, thumbs tapping a random tattoo against his chest.

Like he can sense her looking, he glances at her. “Can’t sleep? Is it your head?”

Margaret shakes her head. “No, just. Can’t seem to drop off. You?”

He hums in agreement. “If I’m making you uncomfortable, I can go.”

She rolls her eyes. “I said it was fine, and it is. I trust you; you’re not like-” she stops.

He turns to her, faces inches apart. John fills her vision, but it’s oddly comforting instead of oppressive or intimidating. “Like who, Margaret?”

She sighs, resigned in the face of his earnest concern. “Henry Lennox,” she says at last. “My cousin’s brother-in-law. I thought we were friends, he thought we were going to be more than that. He wasn’t very good about taking no for an answer.” Margaret feels this is a rather diplomatic way of describing the way he had accused her or leading him on, the way he had claimed he was owed a relationship because of how nice he’d been, the way they’d not spoken since.

John seems to get the message anyway because his brow furrows deeply. “I would never-”

“I know,” she says, not really wanting to get into this right now.

There is a long pause, broken only by them shifting slightly in the sheets. Margaret picks at a loose thread, worrying it between her fingers.

“I’m sorry for asking, earlier.” Her eyes snap back to his almost against her will. “It was-” he huffs a self-deprecating half-laugh, “-a really dreadful time. And I should have tried a bit harder, made it less unexpected.”

Margaret nods, because this is fair. “Probably.”

“If I did,” he says, slow and careful. “Would I have a better chance?”

She looks at John, so sweet and gentle in this funny gloomy half-light. She thinks of the ways he’s looked after her today, even when he didn’t have to, the way he cares about her mother and father, the way Bessie says that working for him actually isn’t so very bad. Margaret has been so caught up in her own quest to save the workers from the oppression of their employers that she hasn’t really considered whether or not they really need saving; whether the employers might not also be humans, trying their best to keep their families fed. She’s still sure that their lot could be improved and that it is the employer’s duty to do so, the bump on her head wasn’t bad enough to shake that, but-

“Maybe,” she says. “Better, certainly, but-”

“No promises.” He smiles. “I’ll take it.”

* * *

He’s awake by the time she is, which surprises her not at all.  She is a bit surprised that he’s acquired a pan and some eggs and is most of the way through scrambling them, humming along to the radio that’s playing quietly on the windowsill.

“Morning,” she says, flicking the kettle on and wrapping her dressing gown more tightly around her. There’s something oddly intimate about standing about in pajamas in broad daylight in her kitchen and she’s not ready to think about that yet.

“Morning,” he replies pleasantly. “Hope this is okay.” John gestures to the pan and she waves a hand in acceptance, sitting at the table with her coffee.

It’s quiet and calm while she slowly wakes up. He serves them both eggs and toast, offering her a smile.

“Thanks,” she says, when she’s awake enough to be grateful.

John shrugs like it’s nothing. “How’s your head?”

Margaret nudges the wound gently with her fingertips. It smarts, but the headache’s almost gone, and she tells him so. “No cause for alarm.”

He gives her a wry half-smile. “Suppose I didn’t have to be here after all.”

Margaret doesn’t look at him, pushing a forkful of eggs around her plate. “It may have been for the best.” She can feel the confusion radiating off him, so soldiers on. “If it convinces me to be a bit nicer to you.”

There is a long pause, and then she hears his fork start to move on his plate again. “Thank you,” he says, quiet and solemn with just a touch of hope. “I would like that.”


End file.
